Polling supports stem cell research

Monday

Aug 29, 2011 at 12:01 AMAug 29, 2011 at 12:45 PM

Correction appended

It has occurred to me that I was born a quarter-century too soon. For whatever reason, I have cartilage that doesn’t wear well. In the past 17½ years, I’ve had both knees, both hips and my right shoulder totally replaced. None of the five joints was ever damaged — the cartilage simply grew thin and then turned to dust, leaving the joints rubbing bone on bone.

Now I’m “blessed” with vanishing cartilage in my left shoulder, neck and lower spine. Maybe, if I had been born a quarter-century later, I wouldn’t be overloaded with steel, plastic and ceramic parts. Maybe stem cell research would have solved my problem. Maybe not. But the opportunity exists to find out.

In 2006, Missouri voters very wisely approved a law allowing stem cell research in our state. In our ultra-conservative tea party society, there simmers a desire to overturn such research. Ol’ Clark cannot understand why anyone would be opposed to making life better at the expense of nobody. I know the arguments, but I also understand the safeguards.

For your information, here’s what the voters approved in 2006:

Missouri has the right to treatment with any stem cell cures that are allowed by the federal government and are available to all Americans.

Medical institutions have the right to provide and help find new stem cell cures.

Clear ethical boundaries and oversight requirements are in place for stem cell research, including a ban on human cloning.

I am a proud member of Missouri Cures, one of 150,000 members who feel stem cell research must continue and expand. In fact, a recent voter poll showed 62 percent of Missouri voters favor stem cell research, and 73 percent of Americans support use of embryonic stem cells left over from in vitro fertilization procedures, according to an October Harris poll.

The Harris poll listed 58 percent of Republicans in favor of stem cell research and 24 percent opposed. The poll also showed 69 percent of Catholics and 58 percent of born-again Christians in favor. Only 28 percent of those polled were against such research because it put the interests of medical science ahead of the preservation of human life — which includes human embryos.

Diabetes is the subject of a pair of upcoming Missouri Cures presentations.

The first is at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday at Stadium Grill in Columbia. Breakfast is on Missouri Cures. The program is twofold. Michael Nichols will discuss the University of Missouri as an engine for economic development. He will then be followed by Dana Ladd, the executive director of Missouri Cures, who will discuss how MU can work with not-for-profit organizations in supporting a pro-research, pro-science environment in our state.

Then on Sept. 29, physician Camillo Ricordi, one of the world’s leading diabetes researchers, will speak at 7:30 p.m. at the Clayton Ritz-Carlton Hotel. He is the scientific director at the University of Miami Diabetes Research Institute. For more information, contact Jim Goodwin at jgoodwin@missouricures.com and tell him Ol’ Clark sent you.

And to the voters of Missouri, if the question of stem cell research should ever again appear on your ballot, make sure the research goes forward, not backward. There might still be time for such research to find relief for what cartilage I have left.

This page has been revised to reflect the following correction:

SECTION FRONT: Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Bill Clark’s Monday column misspelled the name of a diabetes researcher speaking Sept. 29 at the Clayton Ritz-Carlton Hotel. His name is Camillo Ricordi.